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SPEECH 



OF 



MR. WALKER, OF WISCONSIN, 



ON 



The bill to Cede the Public Lands to the States in which they He, 
on condition that such States shall severally convey the 
same to actual occupants only, in limited quanti- 
ties, for cost of survey, transfer, and 
title muniments, merely. 



DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JAN. 14 & 15, 1851. 



/ 



WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED BY ISO. T. TOWERS. 

1851. 



A 



*v* V 



^ 



SPEECH 

OF 



MR. WALKER, OF WISCONSIN, 



ON 



THE BILL TO CEDE THE PUBLIC LANDS TO THE 
STATES IN WHICH THEY LIE. 



DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JAN. 14 & 15, 1851. 



The Senate having under consideration, as in Committee of the 
Whole, the bill to cede the Public Lands to the States in 
which they lie, on condition that such States shall severally 
convey the same to actual occupants only, in limited quantities, 
for cost of survey, transfer, and title muniments, merely, 
Mr. WALKER said: 

Mr. President : It will not be denied by any one that the Senator from Michigan 
(Mr. Felch) has entertained us with an able argument on his side of the subject under 
consideration. But his side — as I expected it would be — is the financial or money side 
•nly t and he has shown us but one side of that ; but has done this with much ability. 
My side of the question is that which lies deep in the principles of political economy and 
the rights of the citizen ; not, however, disregarding financial or pecuniary considera- 
tions — but holding these but secondary to the other. In presenting these, I shall present 
the view neglected by the Senator. He shall also hear an answer to everything he has said, 
in the remarks I propose to submit ; but as to any special answer or reply, it will be but 
incidental in passing. My main object at this time is to advocate the rights of labor as 
connected with the measure under discussion. I must, therefore, crave the Senator'i 
pardon and forbearance when I take leave of his speech, able as it is of its kind, with the 
observation — that it was such conservatism as his which so long perpetuated the practice 
ef imprisonment for debt ; and still perpetuates, in too many localities, the right of the 
creditor to tear the bed from the feeble mother, and the cradle from the still more feeble 
and defenceless infant. It is the rust upon the shield of a by gone age ; it must give place 
*o the motto upon the shield of the present — " Onward! onward!" 

The doctrine and theory of all civilized governments have been, that the absolute or 
positive rights of the people should be deemed of first and paramount importance — and 
the first to be defended and protected. The difficulty has always been, however, that 
this principle tvas known in doctrine and theory only — but never carried out in practice. 
Nor, sir, will it ever be so carried out, untill rulers and statesmen discover and acknow- 
ledge another truth: that from these absolute or positive rights — by which I mean life 
and personal freedom — there result also, certain absolute or positive wants and necessi- 
ties — alike in all men, whether affluent or destitute, and which cannot be resisted — such 
as of food, clot king, and shelter. These wants and necessities should receive the first 
care and attention of Government; while such desires merely, as are of a relative or inci- 
dental kind — by which I mean such as concern and pertain to trade, commerce, wealthy 
and luxury — should receive but a secondary consideration. The first cannot be neglected, 
and man enjoy his positive rights : but the second may, and his pleasures only suffer. 



4 

But every political historian and economist knows that the case has been directly reverse*! 
in practice—that man's absolute wants and necessities have been comparatively neglected r 
while the relative, incidental wants and desires of great classes, have been met and pro- 
vided for by the best energies of Government. Hence we find under the British crown — 
particularly in Great Britain and Ireland — that while thousands upon thousands have 
starved, or gone without necessary food, clothes, shelter and education — wealth and 
luxury, trade, commerce, and manufacture have been promoted, protected, and fostered 
by all the machinery of summary eviction and clearance ; distress for rent $ primogeni- 
ture and strict-entail ; game laws, chuich rates and tithes ; uncontrollable banks, with 
more uncontrollable national debts ; the most expensive navy of the world, with burden- 
some taxation and onerous duties — and these, too, upon the very bread of life, untill 
recently. 

The same crushed condition of the people, so far as regards their positive necessities, 
will be found under all the governments of Europe; and, contemn the idea as you will, 
the fact exists — that the great cause of this is, the disregad shown to these necessities of 
the peopl, in class legislation, and the encouragement given by Government fo lasd 

MONOPOLY AND AGGREGATION. 

But why this implied censure upon England and Europe — when, turning our eyes to 
our own country, we find so little less to complain of? Here, as in ^Britain, are thous- 
ands, and will be millions in warn and destitute misery. Here, as there, the mere inci- 
dental wants and desires of wealth, luxury, class, commerce and manufacture are fast 
engrossing the fostering care and protection of Government, to the entire exclusion and 
disregard of the resistless wants of human nature. In pursuit of this policy, you have 
already created a naval establishment — the expense of which, ior this year, is estimated 
at nine and half millions of dollars! Your customs establishment has cost a 
hundred millions more; and the administration of your customs costs, in addition, two 
millions annually I Your army list and war establishment cost ten and a half millions 
more — increasing as time and years roll on ! How much you have expended, and wili 
expend for the protection of commerce on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts — for harbors, 
fortifications, sea-walls, breakwaters, buoys, beacons, light houses, dry docks, and coast 
surveys — God only knows ! But when you come to western lakes and rivers — to the 
region of agriculture and labor — where the producer is interested in facilities for shipping 
his products, and in receivini with facility, safety, and cheapness, imported articles and 
home manufactures for consumption — there you would have it unconstitutional to ex- 
pend a dollar for the protection of commerce. You have established institutions for the 
education of your military and aval officers at Government expense, while you have 
but grudgingly doled out the (t sixteenth section" for the education of laboring multi- 
tudes. Millions upon millions of the public domain have been expended — chiefly for the 
benefit of capital and corporations — in the construction ot Rail-Roads and canals; but 
not one acre has ever been appropriated to promote the direct interests of agriculture or 
the mechanic arts. 

Your el ss legislation and favoritism are of the same tendency and character here, as 
in England and Europe — but far less excusable; for here you profess the doctrine of 
equali a. You appropriate $20,000 to one army or naval officer for his invention of an 
apparatus with which to elevate and point your cannon; and hundreds of thousands more 
to enable another to "experiment" with his invention of a submerged wheel for your war- 
iteamers. But on the other hand, two poor, but ingenious mechanics — Wright and 
Blanchard — have been literally robbed and plundered of the two most useful and 
beautiful inventions of the day. You appropriate §20,000 to one professor, to "enable" 
him to "experiment" with and perfect his invention of the electro-magnetic teltgraph; 
and $20,000 more to another — and a Government officer, also— for experiment with 
his eh ctro magnetic engine. But when the destitute mechanic and inventor makes his 
appearance — having expended his last farthing, and the toil of years, to perfect his in- 
vention — he is referred to the Patent Office for the only favors and privileges to be 
obtained. There, after having paid the fee of thirty dollais — which, perhaps he has 
borrowed, and one third of which he must now forfeit — he is informed that his specifica- 
tion and claim are informal; that his drawings and model are insufficient; that he must 
employ a "patent-agent" to perfect his papers and drawings, and a model maker to con- 
struct a new model. He has no more money for these purposes, but he has good sense. 
He inquires — what has been done with the immense fund which must have accumulated 



5 

from the sums paid into the oflice hy inventors' — is no part of it appropriated to employ 
person? to draught papers and drawings for those who cannot do it the ns< Ives ? He is 
answered no; but is informed that up to 1st January, 1349, a surplus fund had accumu- 
lated to the amount of $216,468, a small part of which would have answered the pur- 
poses mentioned — but that Congress had higher uses for the fund, and appropriated 
$8,000 of it to pay "for collecting agricultural statistics" — not to advance the interests 
qf agriculture, however, —but simply to collect statistics of what agriculture had reached 
by its own unaided and unencouraged energies. One thousand dollars more for "a 
chemical analysis of the various substances used as food by man and bea**t;"— not to fur- 
nish them food, or facilities for obtaining it — oh, no! — but simply to analyze what they 
did eat — to furnish employment and support for another professor, while he ascertained 
for the common herd of men and beasts, the quantity of gelatin, albumen, and fibrin in 
a beef's shank or a pig's foot; of glutin and starch in a watery potato; and of prussic acid 
in a red cabbage. He is further informed that the whole remainder of the fund, to the 
amount of §207,468, was appropriated — with $32,532 in addition — to build marble 
wings to the Patent Office; not, however, for the use of the Patent Office^ or of the me- 
chanic and inventor— for the present huildin - were ample for the purpose, if it were de- 
voted to it— but for the use of the "Interior Department," and of a "National Institute" 
or museum, in which to deposite the bugs and lizzards, snakes, alligators, and ourang- 
outangs, brought home hy your various exploring expeditions ! 

The patent claimant suggests, perhaps, that this is all wrong; that if no part of the 
fund can be applied to lighten some of the burdens of his class — at least the fees and de- 
posites required should be reduced, and no further surplus be allowed to accumulate, but 
remain in the pockets of the inventor. The Commissioner, however, assures him this 
can never be done — and refers him to the last Patent Report, where it is actually 
recommended that the fees, deposites, and forfeitures be increased — some of them, one 
hundred per cent. 

After having every impediment thrownjn his way, and receiving neither look nor 
deed of encouragement, the man turns away with unavailing sorrow and disappoint- 
ment — the anticipations and hopes of years, perhaps of life, blasted by the blow. He 
casts a furtive glance at the Capitol: it is, indeed, but furtve/-H\e sees no hope of 
favor there; he is neither an official professor, nor a Naval or Army Officer. He mentally 
muses with himself, and wonders what crime he or his class can have committed, that 
there should be such a distinction made. He thinks of the plow, the steam-engine, the 
cotton-gin, power-loom, and locomottve^ he looks around upon your public edifices, and 
dwellings of ease and comfort — upon your ships of war and commerce — upon the very 
stones of the payment at his feet, and remembers — that all were produced, constructed, 
or placed hy minds and hands like his. He therefore feels more keenly the injustice of 
your partiality — tastes more bitterly his own subject inferiority. 

Sir, I refer to these instances and cases 'only to illustrate your unjust and impolitic 
discriminations in favor of wealth, class, or station. I could proceed for the day to enu- 
merate instances, and classes of cases to prove, that the wants of the necessitous work- 
ing clssses are either totally neglected, or insultingly slurred, at the same time that the 
merest incidental desires of wealth and station are cared for and gratified with the most 
scrupulous politeness and promptness. 

Sir, would you learn and practise the remedy? — would you produce content and hap- 
piness, and render firm and secure the institutions of your country? — you must reverse 
your policy and practice— turn your attention first to the wants and necessities of the 
people as max, irrespective of his relations to wealth or station. Meet and provide for 
the.e wants, "and all things else will be added." I do not mean by this that you 
should provide by direct contribution; far from it. The intelligent workingmen of the 
country desire no such thing — they would scorn the proposition. Besides, they know 
lull well, and by experience, that most of what you have to contribute — as in the case of 
the patent fund — was first drawn from their labor and pockets. But wha* they do de- 
sire — what they demand is, that you cease your class and j >b legislation; that you pass 
laws to operate equally upon all, and execute them with impartiality, that they may not 
be starved — but may have a fair chance in the race of enterprise. But above all, and as 
a means to this end, they demand that you shall no longer usurp the useful domain of 
the soil, and exclude them from a rightful occupancy of earth — leaving them but charity 
or sufferance tenants to those upon whom you now lavish your unneeded bounty,- but. 



6 

that you surrender it to their free occupancy, as a means to them of life and indepen- 
dence — securing, at least, the indispensables of food, raiment, and shelter, through the 
exercise of their own energies and industry. 'J hey demand your negative action only — 
that you shall not affirmatively or positively oppress them. To this they are entitled — 
this they will have. In their name I now tell you, that you must and shall reform the 
Government to this extent: the reasons shall appear more manifest before I close. Grant 
this reform, and they will never ask you for contributions. 

But you may say, the scheme as proposed — embracing free land, homestead exemp- 
tion, and land limitation — is impracticable. Sir, this is but the tyrant's answer to the 
call for reform in every age. Impracticable!' VVhy, sir, it is not new; it was practised 
centuries ago. Its reverse — land monopoly — was only introduced with kings ahd mon- 
archy — its abandonment was the main cause of the fall of more than one ancient repub- 
lic. The wonder of the wisest men has been, that it should not have been practised 
through all ages since! I will present the views of one of these — than whose, the mind 
of no man ever ranged more widely through Nature: I mean the great and good St. 
Pierrie. I read from his «' Studies of Natube," No. 7. In speaking of the evils 
and wretchedness occasioned by large landed accumulations in France, he says: 

" I have been astonished that there is no law in France to prevent the unbounded accumulation of landed 
property. The Romans had censors, who limited the extent of a man's possessions to seven acres, as being 
sufficient for the subsistence of one family." " As Rome increased in luxury, it was extended to 500 ; 
but even this law was soon infringed, and the infraction hurried forward the ruin of the republic " 

He might have said the same of Athens and Sparta. 

" Conquerors have always met with feeble resistance in countries where property is unequally divided. 
Overgrown estates destroy the spirit of patriotism in those alike who have everything and those who have 
nothing. 'The shocks of corn,' said Xenophon, 'inspire those who raise them with courage to defend 
them. The sight of them in the field is as a prize exhibited in the middle of the stage to crown the con- 
queror.' " 

44 Such is the danger to which excessive accumulation of property exposes a State outwardly ; but the in- 
ternal mischief it produces among the citizens, and on ihe state of lands, is not less to be deplored. It is not 
upon the face of vast dominious, but in the bosom of industry, that the Fathkr of mankind pours out the 
precious fruits of the earth." 

4 ' Enormous property causes poverty all over the kingdom. * * * In many places there is no employ- 
ment for the peasantry during a great part of the year ; but I shall insist only on their wretchedness, which 
seems to increase with the riches of the district they inhabit." 

" The district of Caux is the most fertile country in the world. Agriculture on the great scale is there car- 
ried to the height of perfection ; but * * * you find unbounded affluence on the one hand and extreme 
indigence on the othei." 

I shall not now go further into the general principles of this measure, but shall con- 
tent myself with discussing more in detail than formerly, its practical bearings and the 
necessity of its adoption for the safety of the country and the people. It will be found 
far more practicable to adopt and enforce it, than to perpetuate the republic a century 
longer without it. v 

Its practical bearings are most important in their effects upon the old States which 
contain no public land ; and should be considered first, in view of the objection that the 
measure proposes to take what belongs to the whole, and give it to a part. This ob- 
jection involves a consideration of two questions: first, that of constitutional power; 
second, that of justice and expediency. 

The first question is easily disposed of; for, by the constitution itself, Congress has 
the express power "to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting 
the territory and other property belonging to the United States." It is, after ail, but a 
question of discretion in Congress, to be determined by the answer to the second ques- 
tion — that of justice and expediency. This, again, must turn upon a just conception of 
the compensating equivalents of the measure, considered in its broadest view. Now, if 
it can be shown that there are equivalents in the measure, fully or more than compen- 
sating the old States for the loss they would sustain by it, then the question is settled in 
the affirmative — that the measure is both just and expedient, so far as those States are 
concerned. I shall now endeavor to show this; and, to do so, shall show it to be their 
true interest to promote the production of the West. 

The old northern States are, properly speaking, not agricultural-producing, but com- 
mercial and manufacturing States Most of them, it is true, engage more or less in 
agriculture; but they are not, and never can be, the chief producing States. These, for 
one class of products, must ever be the inland States — mostly those of the Mississippi 
▼alley. The old States of the North are commercial, by reason of their proximity to the 



Atlantic sea-board; they are manufacturing, because of their great supply of water-power, 
coal, and minerals; they are both commercial and manufacturing, because both pursuits 
combined, constitute for them a better interest than agriculture, if their lands were even 
adapted to the latter pursuit. 

As to the old southern States, the North and West produce what they do not — they 
produce what the North and West cannot. Each is interested, therefore, in the largest 
production by the other. 

Now, every commercial and manufacturing community is interested in having coun- 
try tributary to it, which produces, largely, the raw material of its fabrics and the staples 
of its commerce. I do not use the term tributary in its national-law sense; but in that 
sense only which implies a necessity, from natural causes, of dependence in the tribu- 
tary country, for facilities in its main pursuit. In this sense, we of the West — particu- 
larly of the Northwest — are, and ever shall remain, tributary to the Atlantic States, if 
we adhere to agriculture. W T e must always use and pass their channels and avenues of 
commercial transport in reaching market with our surplus. Where a large agricultural 
surplus is produced, neither the greatest profit nor loss is made or sustained in the mere 
production — but in the manufacture of the products, and in the carrying and barter 
trades connected with them. With our tributary position, these profits must always be 
monopolized by the old States; and the greater our production, the greater the profit thus 
realized by them. Hence it is plain that the more western land you can put under cul- 
tivation, and the more producers you can establish there, the more you enhance the in- 
terests of the commercial and manufacturing States in the items mentioned. But, fur- 
ther, you vastly increase the ability of the class you would send there, to purchase and 
consume the fabrics of the North, and the peculiar products of the South. If the popu- 
lation and production of the West should be doubled, the mutual interests of the North 
and South, in all these particulars, would be doubled also; and so on, in like progressive 
and corresponding proportions. 

But, if the argument be still deemed fallacious, let me test it by another general argu- 
ment. What, sir, is it but a knowledge and acknowledgment of my positions that has 
caused the Atlantic States to vie with each other in extending their public works toward 
the western country? Can it be possible they would have done so had there been no 
West > No; they have been and are so acting with a view to making their works the 
channels — and their cities the marts of western trade. Would New York and Massa- 
chusetts now — if they could have rolled back upon them all their immigrant people, with 
all the wealth they took away — consent, in view of their pecuniary interests, to see the 
West depopulated, and its production stopped 5 No, sir — not if you would give them, 
to-boot, the entire cost of their western public works in money. If there were no West, 
they would have to lay up one-third of their boats and shipping, and diminish full one- 
third their manufactures. Comparative silence would reign, where now the tireless loco- 
motive, never resting, rolls, and commerce floats. When the West has advanced fifty 
years, they would not, for the sake of their commercial and manufacturing interests, set 
her back ten if they could; and it would promote their true interest to advance her in 
population and production fifty years in five, if in their power. Away, then, with your 
petty jealousies of the growing greatness of the West! While we remain of the same 
fam Iy politic — and God grant we may ever so remain! — our greatness is your greatness; 
the prosperity of each, is mutual — our destinies, the same. 

(The Senate here adjourned, and on the next day Mr. WALKER resumed as 
follows:) 

Mr. President, I have so far used but general arguments to prove the interest which 
the old States have in the measure before us; but let us now try figures. The net pro- 
ceeds of the public land sales for 1849, were $983,343. If this were distributed directly 
to the States according to population, New York would receive about $143,000 only — 
supposing the population of that State to be 3,250,000, and of the Union 22,500,000. 
Now, assuming the freight on the Erie canal for the same year to have been no greater 
than for the year 1846, the down- freight from Lake Erie was 506,830 tons, and the 
up-freight 49,000 — making an aggregate of 555,830 tons for the new States alone. On 
this, the State toll was 24 cents per hundred pounds — yielding to the State $2,667,984 
in tolls alone. The freight on this tonnage, over and above the toll, was 15 cents per 
hundred pounds — making $1,667,490 more, paid to the citizens of New York for 



8 

freight. The whole amount of tolls on the Erie canal for 1847, was $3,333,347, and 
on the other canals of the State $302,033— total, $3,63f>,3$0. To show that I have 
not over estimated the relative proportion of western commerce to the aggregate, I will 
state, that 1,431,252 tons were forwarded in the same year from Lake Erie alone, and 
reached tidewater; while only 313,031 tons reached tidewater in New York from all 
other quarters. No one can fail to perceive the immense importance of this trade to the 
State of New York, notwithstanding the West is yet in her infancy. What further 
New York and her people received from the thronging travel to and from the West; 
what more from the manufacture of western products; and what still more from the bar- 
ter trade connected with them here and in foreign markets, cannot be known; but the 
amount must have been immense indeed. Immense as it may have been, however, it 
would be doubled in future, by doubling the production and population of the West. 

The same may be said, to a great extent, in regard to most of the Atlantic States — classing 
Pennsylvania among them — if they will but strive for western trade as have New York. 7 
and Massachusetts. Can they, then, desire to retard the growth of the West? Can 
such a degree of fatuity have seized upon them as to have rendered thern blind to the 
deep and perpetual interest they have in settling the West with laborers and producers, 
and putting her lands under cultivation? Sir, if they owned those lands exclusively, it 
would redound to their interest to grant them free to actual settlement, and I have no 
doubt they would do it. France did so in Louisiana; Spain did the same in Florida and 
Mexico; and Mexico the same in her intendencies. 

There is, then, no argument against the measure under consideration, to be drawn 
from any supposed injustice in it. It contains not only compensating equivalents, but 
remunerating inducements to the old States, to yield their acquiescence in its adoption. 

But you may say, you possess and can retain all these advantages without ceding the 
public lands. We are arguing a question of justice,- this argument sounds like one of 
right, based npon the score of our necessities. However, let it pass. That you possess 
these advantages I concede; that you can per force retain them, I deny. But suppose 
you could — is there no importance to you in having them doubled in ten instead of fifty 
years' Is the annual double of $2,667,984, nothing to New York as a State, compared 
with $143,000 — her distributive share of the land-sale proceeds — and this received not 
directly, but incidentally only? But you cannot retain these advantages by your pres- 
ent, policy. You will force us to become a manufacturing as well as an agricultural 
people; when wo-betide the commerce and manufactures of New York and New Eng- 
land, at least so far as the West and South shall be concerned ! We have equal facili- 
ties with you in water power, and greater in steam — for we have cheaper combustible. 
Our resources in coal, iron, lead, copper, timber, lumber, clay, and limestone are inex- 
haustible. We can beat the world in wool, flax, and hemp growing, and are nearer 
than you to the cotton region — with the broad Mississippi to float our interchanging 
products; its' contributing branches — the Arkansas, Red River, Ohio, Wabash, Illinois, 
Missouri, and Wisconsin, and their tributaries — winding past our every domicil and 
hamlet; with railroads and canals in progress, to unite the whole. All we lack is capital, 
which we are fast acquiring, and shall soon have — the sooner by the defeat of this bill: for 
if we do not by its provisions receive as population such as desire, and will be contented 
with small possessions, we will receive those who, lured by the increasing value of west- 
ern lands and resources, will bring capital with them, and employ it where there is less 
competition, with a view to obtaining large possessions. When we shall have capital, 
you will find no mean competitor in the mighty West in manufacturing; nor will Bos- 
ton, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore find trifling competitors in Charleston, 
Mobile, and New Orleans, as commercial marts. The latter is our natural mart any- 
how, by reason of the downstream navigation, without toll or storms, to her very wharves; 
and the two former will be more naturally so than the Eastern cities named, when the 
great central railroad from Chicago to Mobile, with its branch roads, shall have been 
completed. As manufacturers, too, we will be in the centre of population and a home 
market, while we are far removed from competing imports, with which you will have to 
contend after the embarrassing withdrawal of your now Western and Southern market. 

It will be perceived that we may be kept voluntary, but can never be made compulsory 
tributaries bt' the old Eastern States. Settle the public lands with an agricultural people, 
and we remain the former; drive us to manufacturing, and we will neither be that nor 
the latter. 



9 

The practical bearing of the measure upon the revenues of the Government, is of next 
importance. I will repeat a truism and opinion, expressed by me on a former occasion, 
for the purpose of briefly enlarging upon it — premising, however, that it is a little won- 
derful that it should not have struck the better sagacity of the Senator from Michigan, 
while presenting his side of the same subject. It is this: 

" Until die t taxation shall be resorted to, the great and important source of revenue to the Government 
musr be dnfk-s on foteigu imports. Now, every one knows that the amount thus to be received is enhanced, 
as the number of cousumers of foreign imports is increased. Hence I contend that the revenue would be 
increased bv the policy proposed ; for. by increasing the number of agricultural producer.-., von increase the 
number of import consumers, and their ability to eonsume— or. iu other words, their ability to purchase for 
consumption. The Government, I have no doubt, would be the gainer in her revenue after sacr'ficinrr her 
receipts from the public lands." 

No one except the Senator will deny, I presume, that the measure would establish as 
producers, within the next ten years, at least five hundred thousand persons. Now, 
supposing that by the tenth year the ability of these persons to purchase and consume 
dutiable articles would be increased but §50 each, here would be an increased consump- 
tion in value, of $25,000,000. The increase of revenue from this source alone, at the 
present tariff of 30 per cent., would be $7,500,000 for the year 1861. Add to this, 
$836,152 — the annual expense of the present land system, which would be saved to the 
Government — and you have an aggregate increase of revenue for that year alone, with- 
out estimating the intermediate increase and saving, of $8,336,152. The saving alone 
for the whole period would be $8,361,520. This is an increase of revenue, as Burke 
would say, "through the political secretions of the country " but the Senator from 
Michigan says it is but one part of the community paying for what is enjoyed by the 
other. It looks to me a good deal like an ample remuneration for liberal treatment and 
a just policy: % 

Now, sir, keep your lands, and what will they net you for the whole ten years? Let 
us see: As before stated, the net money proceeds for 1849 were §983,343. This is 
greater than they will ever be again — particularly if you make the last issue of bounty 
land warrants negotiable. But take this amount, and multiply it through the whole 
term, and you have but $9,833,433 for the entire period, compared to §8,336, 152, the 
increase and saving of one year alone under the measure proposed; and the additional 
saving for the time, of $7,525,368— making an aggregate of $15,861,520. 

Such would be the comparative results under your present revenue system; but if re- 
sort be had to direct taxation, the revenue advantages of this measure to the Government, 
over the policy of keeping the lands unproductive and untaxable, would still be great. 
The extent cannot be calculated with certainty, but may be approximated. Then, as- 
suming that the amount of land which would become individual property and subject to 
taxation, would be only three times the amount that would become so under your pre- 
sent policy — the amount in ten years would be about 150,000,000 of acres. Supposing 
this to be worth, settled, $U> per acre, an ad valorem tax of only one mill to the dollar, 
or ten cents to the hundred dollars, would yield a revenue of $1,500,000 — increasing an- 
nually in amount, but diminishing in rate; and which, added to the expense saved, 
$836,152, makes an aggregate of $2,336,152, to be compared again with $983,344 
only — and that continually decreasing in amount to the Government. Add to this the 
vast national wealth which would be created by the encouragement and impetus given 
to agricultural production, and the pecuniary and revenue advantages of the measure we 
are discussing, will appear incalculable. Let one item suffice as an example: Suppose 
but one-fourth of the land I have mentioned, to be cultivated in wheat, in 1861, and to 
produce but ten bushels per acre, (it will produce from twenty to forty) — the value of 
this, at 80 cents per bushel, would be thheb hundred and twenty millions of 
dollars ! And yet we have said nothing of horses, cattle, sheep, beef, pork, wool, 
cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, hemp, flax, and the various other products of labor and 
agriculture — all of which constitute a vast source of revenue, as well as of individual 
comfort. 

Perhaps the Senator from Michigan begins to perceive by this time, that there are two 
sides to this view of the question. If not, I must notice one other objection urged by 
him. It was this: " that the measure would depreciate property now held by States and 
individuals." Why, sir, the very opposite would be its effect. In the country, as in 
the city, it is not the price demanded or paid for one lot of land, that increases the value 
of that adjoining; but the improvements made, and the business done upon it. Take 



10 

the land owner in a sparse settlement of the West; and could you do him a greater favor 
than to give the lands about him to those who would settle and improve them* — create 
a necessity for, and the means to support, schools, roads, mills, workshops, and villages? 
Or, take the New York and Boston Land Company, whose lands stretch across the 
State of Illinois; and could you benefit them more than by settling the lands about them, 
and hemming in theirs with improved farms? The same may be said of the school and 
other lands of the States. Why, really, sir, if I had not known better, I should have sup- 
posed % when the Senator was urging this objection, that he yet lived in Maine, instead of 
Michigan. As it is, I must think he has lived a very superficial observer. The prop- 
erty of the non-landholding State would be increased in value, through the increased 
importance of the commerce and trade of those States, as before stated. To you, there- 
fore, of the old States, I repeat: You have every inducement to yield the measure un- 
der consideration. Why do you — why will you withhold it? It can be but from two 
other considerations: that of political power, and that of herding and crowding your 
laboring population, until tou can force down the wages of la bob to the 
European standard. 

In regard to the first of these, I again think you reason from false premises to errone- 
ous conclusions. You may lose relative political power through this measure, by pro- 
moting the growth of the West; but this is inevitable, whatever policy you may pursue; 
for if the West do not receive your surplus poor and suffering population, it will receive, 
though not so soon, a full equivalent in numbers of your abler population. If you fear 
to suffer a positive loss of political power, by a diminution of your present numbers — 
remember, this would equally be the case whichever class the West might receive. But 
is this possible, or at least probahle? When, for the same period of time, have you ever 
given off so many of your numbers to people the West, as since 1 840 ? — and when, for 
a like period, have you ever increased so rapidly in population? Never. The reason 
is, the natural richness of the West, developed within that time, gives reputation and 
invites immigration to the whole country; which immigration, together with your natu- 
ral increase, more than makes up your loss and usual increase. 

If to accumulate and crowd a surplus laboring population, until you have driven it to 
European want and misery — until you have forced down wages to a European stand- 
ard — be your motive for withholding the public domain from free settlement, you might 
as well — you had better abandon it, if you love your country. I tell you but what you 
know : this can never be done under this Government — it can never be done, and this 
Republic stand. You must fuse it into a tyranny or despotism first. Thank God! you 
have no power here, as in England, to transport men to Van Dieman's Land for seeking 
to obtain by combination a pittance for their labor sufficient to allay the cravings of 
nature. Nor dare you do what Louis Philippe did in '45 — send the soldiery to work in 
place of the carpenters v ho had abandoned their employment, because they could not 
obtain for their labor a like pittance. You know too well the results of this to him. 

But it can hardly ^e that this is with any one an actuating motive in his opposition to 
this measure. It would barely seem possible that an American could desire to see his 
countrymen rendered so wretched, as to be driven to labor in the mines or at the forge 
for fourteen cents a day — as in Sweden the laborer is compelled to do ; or as in Russia, 
where, by the testimony of Erman, the laborer is compelled to toil at the forges or the 
mines of the Ural mountains, thirteen and a half hours per day, for eight and a quarter 
kopeks, {less than a penny,) if single, but with the addition of eighty pounds of rye- 
meal per month, if he be a man of family; — where the yearly wages of labor are but 
four Prussian dollars ! Though this is bitter, cheerless toil to the laborer, its fruits are 
sweet to the Russian tyrant, as they doubtless would be to the American, who might 
desire a similar state of things at home. Those fruits are, that the Russian iron-master 
is enabled to manufacture iron, to transport it from the Urals in boats, three thousand 
miles to St. Petersburg — descending on the route nine hundred feet, reascending again 
six hundred more to the point of shipment — and to ship it thence four thousand miles to 
our shores; and here, after paying a duty of thirty per cent., to undersell the American 
iron-master, and return with wealth to revel in Russian luxury. These are the wages, 
and these the fruits of that system of toil, which such an American — if such there be! — 
would impose upon gaunt and houseless poverty. May providence put far hence the 
sunless day ! When it shall come — and come it must as things now tend — the pro- 
phetic words of the Senator from Kentucky, (Mr. Clay,) in his late speech at Lexing- 
ton, will have been fulfilled. In speaking of the future, he says : 



11 



" The density of the population of the United Plates will then be so great— there will be such reduction in 
the priie and value of labor — as to render it much cheaper to employ free than slave labor ; and slaves, be- 
coming a burden to their owners, will be voluntarily disposed of, and allowed to go free." 

And are we, then, approaching so mournful a condition in the affairs of the working 
classes? Yes — it is too true ! and as surely will we reach it as that other countries 
have, unless we use the preventive before it be too late. But before we reach it — though 
it may be soon — the triumph of oppression, accumulated wealth, and heartless luxury, 
over the struggles of the destitute for food and freedom — will have thrown this Republic, 
with its liberty and glory, into the dark receptacle of things that are no more — the past ! 
Before this final triumph — poverty and toil will have made many fitful efforts for relief, 
and to be free ; but power will gather power, and wealth increase in wealth, till crowd- 
ed want, at last worn out and starved, must sink down in hopeless need and servitude. 
This has ever been the result in every land ; it will be the result in this, unless you 
now, or soon, to some extent, withdraw your cares from the mere incidents of life, and 
class, and luxury, and turn them to the absolute and never-ceasing wants and demands 
of man and nature. To do this to any effect, you must secure to man as man, a right- 
ful place on earth. Leave the great ?nass dependant upon the jew, for a mere charita- 
ble tenure in the soil ; and you leave them with but a charitable tenure in their lives or 
their liberties. But allow them a certain tenure and right to its possession, and they 
can use it for the purpose, at least, for which the Creator gave it — that of independent 
self -subsistence. From the earth each individual can obtain, if no more, his food and 
raiment, and on it have a home. With these he can hurl a yeoman's defiance at petty 
tyranny, defend the State, and advance the true glory of his country ; while he rejoices 
that wealth exists to advance as well its splendor. 

Who would not rejoice at so pleasing and peaceful a harmony in the political and 
social system 1 And yet it is but the consummation of true democracy — but the fulfil- 
ment of the designs of our fathers when they declared, that governments were estab- 
lished among men to secure the absolute, the inalienable right to lile, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness, with which men were endowed by their Creator. Cement thus, 
the affections of the people to your Government and institutions, and the eternal pyra- 
mid stands not more firmly on its base, than will this Republic and the Union, stand upon 
their foundation ! 

But as things now progress and tend, we can console ourselves with no so pleasing 
contemplation. We are hurrying on to a day of destitution and dependence to the la- 
boring multitude, and of danger to the country, much faster than many would suppose, 
who suppose without reflection or investigation. We are approaching it much more rap- 
idly than the flight of time, the increase of population, and the aggregation of land would 
seem alone to indicate. Improved machinery — a great and providential blessing in it- 
self, under a properly regulated political and social system — is now performing labor 
which the most numerous laboring population could not perform. True, there is a slight 
compensation in the fact, that this does not consume the necessaries of life, and affords 
cheaper fuel and some other necessaries to the laboring pool in large cities ; but if you 
exclude the poor and landless from the soil, and monopolize their labor elsewhere by 
machinery, how are they to obtain of these necessaries even the superflux of luxury 1 

In a report on manufactures, made in 1832, Mr. Adams estimates the mechanical ma- 
chinery of Great Britain in 1815, to have been equal to the labor of two hundred mil- 
lions of persons ! It will now at least double the amount of that number, as will also 
that of this country. From data furnished by McCulloch, it appears that, with the pres- 
ent machinery, each hand in a cotton mill performs more work than two hundred could 
without it, eighty years ago. We have the testimony of Farey and Dr. Taylor to the 
same purport. Reduce these performances to those of individuals, and you will find that 
the manual energies of ten-fold our present population would be unequal to them. From 
this we can appreciate our rapid increase in labor-numbers. Now, bear in mind that this 
machinery works in competition with, but rarely for, the laborer — and you will perceive 
the extreme justice and necessity of allowing him to turn for subsistence to the soil, when 
you have supplanted him in his labor by a machine. But much more plainly will you 
perceive this when you reflect that, in addition to the other embarrassments of the la- 
borer, from competing machinery, you compel him to sustain and foster thai competi- 
tion, by forcing him to pay a tribute or tariff of ten to forty per cent, upon its pro- 
ducts! Could there be a more glaring instance to show that, not only are the mere in- 
cidental wants of wealth held superior to the absolute wants or necessities of man — but 
that his very life's blood itself, or, if not his blood, his bread must be taken to minister to 



12 

and gratify them. In justice, cease to demand this tribute of the laborer, or make its 
payment optional, by allowing him the alternative of digging subsistence from the earth. 
TarifTprotection with free land, might be consistent ; but without it — never ! 

But it may be said that the laborer receives an equivalent for the competition of ma- 
chine labor, in the reduced pricemt which he is enabled to purchase the products of that 
labor for his own use and consumption. Thts would be somewhat true if it were not 
also a fact — that a reduction of the price of machine products, products a correspond- 
ing or greater reduction in the wages of manual labor. Machinery over-produces, and 
consequently its products fall. The machine owner will not produce without a profit ; 
he cannot lie idle without a loss. He therefore takes from the wages of his manual la- 
bor, not only what will meet the fall in machine products, but what will leave him a profit 
besides ; and so goes on producing and reducing. A little snuggle follows — a f strike" 
perhaps — but hunger, and the teaiful appeals of hungry children or of aged parents, soon 
bring back the toiler to her scantier crust. 

, Now, sir, i f land be dear, what alternative has the landless laborer in such an extremity, 
but to surrender his life or his freedom ? — but to starve, or become an abject dependant ? 
And land is sure to become dear. Machinery having driven so many from the bench, 
the anvil, and the workshop, to take refuge in the soil ; like everything else, the foil be- 
comes scarcer and scarcer in proportion to the demand — till at last it can no longer be 
had at living rates ; for, unlike everything else, in which wealth is permitted to specu- 
late, its quantity cannot be increased as the demand is enlarged. Starvation or passive 
dependence is the result to landless industry, while, in the language of Lord John Rus- 
sell, "the higher classes advance in luxury beyond measure." The world looks on, 
agape, and wonders why it is so ! The true reformer — whose voice is rarely heard, and 
still more rarely heeded — may see and tell the cause, and point out the remedy ; but no 
one hears — no one pities! Over the dying and the dead, the wheel, remorseless, rolls 
along! Great men sit supinely by and cry " All's well!" or console themselves and their 
country with the reflection, that the future wretchedness and enslavement of iheir own 
race, are to prove the more wretched emancipation of another, now enslaved. Others will 
sneer at truths and facts so manifest — and which they cannot refute or answer — while 
they urge on labor to the brink and gulf I have mentioned, and claim at the same time 
lhat they are the only liberty- loving patriots of the land. 

To illustrate the effects of land monopoly and machine labor, let us advert to the his- 
tory of labor in England. 

By a statute of Edward III, passed in 1350. the daily wages of farm-laborers were 
fixed at 3 Jd. At that period wheat was worth 5d. per bushel. Reaper's wages were 
fixed by Henry IV at 2d. per day: wheat being worth 6d. to 7d. per bushel ; oxen, 12s. 
to 16s.: and butter three farthings per pound. In harvest-time a laborer could pay for 
a pair of shoes with a day's labor, and with the wages of a week could buy cloth for a 
suit of clothes; or, with the same could buy four bushels of wheat. At a little later 
period, we find the British statutes mentioning" beef, pork, veal, and mutton" as "being 
the food of the poorer sort." Now the value of a bushel of wheat is, and has long been, 
$1 95; while a week's wages are but about $1 93. Beef is worth thirteen cents per 
pound; mutton, fourteen cents; a fat sheep, $10 to $12; butter, twenty cents per 
pound ; and cheese, fourteen cents. Of course the laborer can have no comforts. "The 
farm-laborer is compelled to feed his family on potatoes and salt — a very little bread 
and lard, with some scalded milk." He is doomed to toil incessantly to preserve mere 
animal existance ; for the mind or the futnre he can make no provision. And this is 
labor's life in Britain ! The British Queen might well exclaim, with old King Lear — 

" Poor, naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, 
That, hide the pelting of this pitiless storm, 
How shall your houseless heads ani unfed sides, 
Yourloop'd and window'd rappedness defend you 
From seasons such as these ? Oh ! I have ta'en 
Too little care of this." 

Cross the channel from England, and in Ireland the case is still worse. We have 
the authority of a speech made in Parliament, by Mr. Henry Grattan, for saying, that 
there perished of starvation over one hundred and sixteen thousand persons during the 
late famine. Nearly as many perished in the famine of 1^22. These are some of the 
frightful results of the causes I have mentioned, under the very throne of England, and 
within seven days' sail of America ! — in a country, too, with a population not exceeding 
thirty millions; while her best authorities admit her land to be capable of sustaining, in 



13 

high comfort, a population of one hundred and eighty millions, if the people were 
allowed to cultivate it ; — in a country, furthermore, where "the higher classes have ad- 
vaneeJ in luxury beyond measure ! 

If, since Henry VIII., England has advanced beyond precedent, in luxury, useful 
knowledge, and the arts and sciences, it has been at this fearful expense to life and hu- 
man comfort, through an almost total neglect of the wants and necessities of her people. 
While machinery has usurped the province of human labor, and cut otf that source of 
human subsistence ; legislation and land monopoly have cut off the only other — a resort 
to the bosom of the earth. Weaie treading fast upon her footsteps; and, under onr 
present course of policy, cannot long boast a happier condition for our working poor. 
Still, there has existed no necessary cause in England, why her laboring population 
should be so wretched ; and much less does such a reason exist here, why ours should 
ever be so. There are yet time and opportunity to prevent it, by removing the un- 
necessary cause which, unremoved, must inevitably lead to it. 

But hitherto your policy and practice have been all wrong. Besides the partial and class 
legislation of which I have spoken, your public-land policy has been, from the begin- 
ning, to encourage large landed proprietorships and speculation, and to discourage settle- 
ment in small subdivisions for purposes of self-subsistence. By the ordinance of 1787, 
with which you began, you required the govenor of the Northwestern Territory to be an 
owner of 1,000 acres of land ; the secretary 500; three judges, each, 500 ; eacli member 
of the legislative cousel 500 ; and each representative 200. You first ordered the lands 
to be sold at $2 per acre — one-half in quarter townships or 5,760-acre tracts — the other 
half in sections or 640-acre tracts. The sale in half and quarter sections was not autho- 
rized till 1804; and in half quarter sections, or 80 acre tracts, not until 1820 — down to 
which time the price was continued at $2. It was not until the 5th of April, 1832, that 
the man with $50 only, could obtain an acre of the vast public domain ; for it was 
then only that the sale in quarter-quarter sections, or 40 acre tracts, was allowed. Even 
then, or the next year, you required the humble purchaser to take an oath, appalling in 
its terms ! This is the oath : 

" 1 do solemnly swear that the land is intended to he entered for my personal benefit, and not in trust for 
another, and that the same is intended fur the purpose of cultivation ; and that I have not entered under 
the act of 5th April, 1832, or under the act of 2d M;irch, 1S33, at this or any other land office of the United 
States, any land in quarter quarter sections in my own name, or in the name of any other person — so help 



me 



God!' 



Surely one would have thought the country might have spared the humble seeker of a 
home for himself or child, this last embarrassment and humiliation. From him who 
had the means and desire to purchase ten thousand acres, with which to speculate upon 
the necessities of his fellow-citizen, no oath was lequired; but he who possessed but 
$50, and who, from seeking to expend it for land, gave the best evidence of an intention 
to make it a home, and from it obtain an independent living — must swear, notwith- 
standing, that such was his design. 

It has been your practice for a quarter of a century, to appropriate land by millions 
of acres, in alternate sections, to construct channels and avenues of commerce ; and to 
make the laboring and producing settler pay for it in the increased price which you 
demanded of him for the alternates not appropriated. 

But, sir, as if all this were not enough to foster speculation and embarrass productive 
industry, you have for the lass four years been running wanton-riot in your legislation 
to promote the ends of land monopoly. You have issued millions upon millions in 
amount of assignable Mexican bounty-land warrants — operating, not for the benefit of 
the soldier, but of capital — as a paper medium with which to monopolize on speculation 
the fairest portion of the people's heritage. As if this were still not enough, last session 
you authorized the issue in warrants, of unknown millions more ; and because you did 
not make these negotiable, mad fury rages among the horde of night-besetting, hound- 
tongued agents and speculators throughout the land ; and members, as if casting no look 
to the future, are striving at this session to cut loose this last and only security to the 
soldier's boon, that it, too, may be coaxed or torn from the hand of war-worn need. But 
above and beyond all, as the very crowning thought of wrong and folly — as if determined 
to plunge the country into Russian-labor bondage — some are now entertaining with se- 
rious complacency, the hideous project of giving, for a few cents per acre, over one 
hundred .millions of acres to one wan, to " enable" him to make a railroad ! — a terri- 
tory equal in extent to the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Delaware ! 



14 



Sir, if I read aright the signs of the times, the woiking masses of the people have 
resolved that you shall change your policy and practice; — that you shall partly turn your 
cares from the exclusive thrall of luxurious incident. They are discontented and un- 
happy. Aside from present care and want, and that sense of dependence and subjection 
with which your class discriminations have depressed them, they feel and know — they 
cannot close their eyes to the fact — that the policy you are now pursuing portends a 
gloomier day in the future for them or their children. Already, where most crowded, 
the more favored are but able to obtain through the week, what at its close will procure 
the meanest comforts for their families. If sickness overtake them, or misfortune come — 
or if a few days work cannot be had — real destitution and suffering, or insolvable debts 
are the result. If they would go West, to the public lands — the asylum and refuge of 
distress — and have the present means to make the journey, they have no more ; or, if 
they have a little more, knowing the expense and time of putting in even a small farm, 
they know that little will be exhausted ; they despair of ability to buy the land when it 
shall come into market. They know that when their first stack is gone it will require 
all their earnings to support increasing family ; that for some years they can lay up no- 
thing with which to save their labor and improvements from the blood-lured grasp of 
the speculator. They consequently remain where they are — toiling on to an uncertain 
destiny ; with no consolation from the past, few comforts or enjoyments for the present, 
and less, but more gloomy hopes for the future. They see that machinery is fast push- 
ing them from the stage %f human labor — that already their bread, to some extent, de- 
pends upon the price of machine products, and that price upon the amount of tribute or 
tariff tiiey themselves are forced to pay to keep it up. As a substitute, they are offered 
no resource in the fifteen hundred millions of the public land ; but are compelled to 
meet the certain, dread alternative of starvation, or comfortless dependence ! Sir, dis- 
guise it as you may, there is none other left, unless you soon concede their right to freely 
dig subsistence, independence, and comfort from the earth. Do this, and their well- 
founded fears wll be removed. Cease your favoritism in the blessings and bounties of 
government, and they will lose the sense of subject-inferiority with which your unjust 
discriminations have bowed them down. 

But, sir, you will never do these things willingly ; yet you will do them. The work- 
ing number — thanks to God and the form of our Government — hold the means to com- 
pel you ! They hold the ballots through which you now hold power: the means 
which exalted you can humble you ; and these means th?y have determined to employ. 
They have already begun ; and the results are known, if the means of their accom- 
plishment are not. If you would know what I mean, I refer you to the elections of last 
fall, held in New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. If you did not know it before, 
you are now told — that national reform democracy elected the majorities elected 
in those States ! I will tell you another truth, little as it is known — that Horatio N. 
Sevmour might now be governor of the Empire State, if he had not remained a mere, 
negation upon the subject of human rights and necessities. The working multitude 
have been long enough depressed by false and oppressive practices, following sweet and 
honeyed professions — they can be deceived no longer. They form no party of their own, 
but in combination practise what they preach. They have resolved to save their race 
from slavery, and their country from worse than monarchy. To these ends they have 
turned their attention, in earnest, to the absolute rights and positive wants of mankind. 
They have determined that you shall do the same, or surrender to those who will. It is 
for you to choose your alternative ; for, as certain as the Lord liveth ! you cannot much 
longer persecute, as you have done, the mass of America's workmen, for the " unreal 
wants'* of luxury. 

Sir, do not contemn this labor-movement of the people — it is not to be contemned. It 
is the same in spirit — made manifest by works — which so lately hurled Louis Phillippe 
from the throne of France, and drove him, exiled, to another land to die ; which more 
recently braved in Hungary, the terrors of Russian and Austrian arms and power, and 
but for treachery would have triumphed ; and which as recently, caused the German 
Principalities to quake, and their princes to tremble on their castled heights ; and which 
will yet dash them down, to feel the terrors of the fall ! All this was and will be done 
to gain, as a means, but what Americans now hold — the elective franchise. Having ob- 
tained this, do you suppose the Frenchman, the Magyar, or the German would starve, or 
live in pittance-servitude, simply because elective rulers said he must ? No — nor, having 
it, will Americans do either, only because you may say they must ; when they can so 
easily, and without blood or struggle, force you from the stage of power! 



15 

To afford you a manifestation of this, they carried, in two short months from the last 
adjournment, one-tenth of this Union by storm. But it was a calm storm — no swords, 
no bayonets, no cannon, or musketry. The soldiery were those who live by labor, and 
who desire but labor and wages that they may live. Armed with the dreadful ballot — 
but dreadful to oppression only — they marched to what gold-plated conservatism thought 
its impregnable rampart ; fired but one round — and that scarcely heard at the time ; but 
some of the enemy who fell behind that rampart were not ignorant of what hurt them. 
I said, in my speech of last session, there should be a petition here, at this, which "would 
be heeded." You have it in the political results I have mentioned. Neglect the admo- 
nition if you will — but you cannot but at your peril. It is a death-toll warning in your 
ear, that you too, 

M Have ta'en too little care of this !" 



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